Free speech and Darwinism

It is disappointing to see some of the disinformation that is being spread on social media sites.In particular, at this time, about Covid-19.

It has always been the case that social media has been ill equipped to deal with disinformation and always runs up against the largely philosophical debate about free speech. That's all well and good when we are talking about Russian bots interfering in elections and helping Trump get elected or the UK leave the EU, it simply means the other side of the argument needs to step up its game and fight back. But that's not the same when we are talking about a pandemic. Some of the information being disseminated on social media will actually result in the needless death of, potentially, large numbers of people.

From its inception the beauty of social media and the internet in general was always that it had the power to revolutionise the world of knowledge and, by connecting billions of people worldwide, it would have a transformative effect on peoples lives. That has been proven to be the case but there is also the darkside and the darkside has had some very negative effects on society. Whether that is the spread of child pornography, state actors interfering in other nations affairs, sales of drugs and weapons or state control of people through one device or another, overtly in some countries and more subtly in other countries. But when people go out of their way to spread misinformation for a bit of fun that's different.

It seems beholding upon all of us to try to halt such things and keep people informed using the public service information that is easily available.

But I guess in some ways it is an example of Darwinism at work. Stupid people will perish if they do not take the advice of the experts in the area. Unfortunately they will take down an awful lot of people with them because of their own stupidity. Not too much we can do about that that in a liberal society. And that has a rather dubious potential knock-on impact on all of our lives.

Not for the first time we see illiberal countries taking drastic actions to contain and control the spread of the virus and, too a large extent as far as we can see at the moment, that action is having a positive effect (on the spread of the virus at least). The danger to liberalism comes when liberal societies are found wanting in their response to the virus and do not contain or control it as far as the illiberal societies do.

At some point it has the potential to raise the question as to whether liberal society works or whether we should voluntarily be voting in illiberal governments, as some of the outliers of europe have already done. The trouble with doing so is, that once you hand over power to illiberal government it's not so easy to get it back. Sure, you will see a better response to dealing with the next pandemic but at what cost to your lives. Things such as coronavirus only exacerbate the problem, for those of us that see it as a problem. We might do well to watch what happens in those outlier countries in europe over the next few years to see what happens to them before we start inviting such parties to take control in the liberal bastions.

When I was in the gym today I listened to a guy who was stating loudly, although I think load was simply his default setting, that 'this virus was just another bug and he would not change how he lived his life because of it' before coughing into his hand and starting to use a piece of gym equipment! That's all well and good, it would be an excellent piece of Darwinism at work if he found out the hard way that perhaps he should take more care. After all, he appeared over 50, overweight and his fingers had the staining of somebody who was or is a heavy smoker. His age and weight would indicate that he either borderline hypertensive and/or diabetic and the assumed smoking means his lungs are already impaired.

All in all, if he does catch the virus in a heavy dosage ie enough to quickly overwhelm his immune system, then I'd gauge his chances of survival at c.80%. I'm not sure that he really wants to be taking that kind of gamble but I guess that's his choice. Even if he does get through the attack I imagine his already compromised lungs will be even further compromised either from pneumonia or from his immune system taking large chunks of the lungs out while trying to kill the virus. And of course, at the age of c.50 he probably has one or both parents alive and they'll be mid 70s! If his ignorance passes the virus on to them then I'd put their survival chances at c.60% and that's assuming they are relatively fit. But that'll be one of the great experiments of virologists, epidemiologists and the like as they love playing with numbers to increase the pool of knowledge so we can fight the next virus better.

If I might permit myself a slight irreverence or even flippancy, there are some bright sides to this crisis. For a start, if you have caught the virus and got through it, which most people will with almost no side effects, then now is a really good time to book a flight or a holiday! I mean, it is anyway but if you had not had the virus then firstly you probably would not get any insurance and secondly you would be hard pressed to relax when you don't know what the hygiene standards are of the place you are visiting. But of you have had the virus, heh, go and enjoy. The second is even more flippant if not a little cruel, but it is one that economists will point out simply because they deal in numbers and not in humanity, the virus does mean that quite a few care homes will be severely affected and so theoretically from an economics perspective, care home costs might decline due to supply and demand curves. But that really is a dark way of looking at this crisis and something that would personally affect me so I don't wish it to happen but that does not mean it won't!